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A Brief History of the Recording Musicians AssociationIn an attempt to protect the live music industry, AFM President Petrillo ordered a ban on phonograph/transcription recordings in 1942. In 1944, the ban was lifted as the AFM had negotiated fixed royalties for each album produced by the record companies. By 1951, the royalty payment amounted to 5% of the overall budget for TV productions, which led to "track libraries" being produced overseas to circumvent the royalty payments. LA musicians were losing work, and even Desi Arnez was pleading their case to AFM officials in New York. Petrillo in 1955 began to divert the $25 payment for film reuse on TV from the recording musicians to the new MPTF program; the total roylaties diverted came to almost $2 million. Full-time recording musicians, receiving no pension, royalty, or reuse payments, and unable to ratify their own contracts, now became upset over the loss of these funds to the MPTF program, and in 1956 began a revolt led by Local 47 VP Cecil Read. Before the revolt would end, the leaders would be expelled from the AFM and they would make national news, seeing their cause reported in the LA Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and others. During the 1958 motion picture strike, these "renegades" formed the Musicians Guild of America. If the AFM would not represent their interests, they would form their own union to represent their needs. An NLRB election gave representation rights at the major studios to the MGA, taking them away from the AFM. The new AFM leadership took this, as well as the formation of the Recording Society of NY, as a wake-up call, and began to follow suit, eliminating the 5% TV royalty tax and creating a pension plan. The AFM won back representation rights to the studios in 1960 and began talks to reunite with the MGA recording musicians, offering the Special Payments Fund, a recording advisory committee, and the ability to ratify contracts as incentives to put an end to the dual unionism. The RMA of NY was formed in 1969 to offer more input from recording musicians during negotiations. When the AFM "gave back" 25 years of progress through negotiations in 1982 by making a sweetheart deal to legitimize nonunion rates at San Diego jingle house Tuesday Productions, recording musicians used this as a rallying cry to form a national RMA, eventually with chapters in NY, LA, Chicago, Nashville, and Toronto. The RMA exists to unify recording musicians and coordinate their efforts. They lobbied for and were eventually given AFM Conference Status in 1987. Some of the goals the RMA has worked toward since its founding are:
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